As of June 2, 2026, 89 Palestinian women are being held in Israeli prisons and detention centers, following the arrest of four young women this morning. The detainees include three minors, three pregnant women, 19 administrative detainees who have been held without charge or trial, and two women with cancer. Most are held in Damon Prisons, while other remain in interrogation and detention centers.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society report that since October 7, 2023, over 760 Palestinian women have been arrested throughout the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem, and Israel. The majority were held without charge or trial.
What is happening inside
UN experts expressed alarm in February 2024 over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls in Israeli detention. The documentation is specific and extensive. Women have been denied menstrual pads, food, and medicine. On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were kept in a cage in the rain and cold without food. Several women have claimed being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least 2 female Palestinian inmates were reportedly raped. Others were threatened with rape and sexual violence. Photographs of female detainees in degrading circumstances were reportedly taken and posted online
In August 2024, UN human rights experts stated that countless testimonies from men and women described detainees in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds, blindfolded and in diapers, stripped naked, deprived of adequate healthcare, food, water, and sleep, subjected to electrocutions, including their genitals, cigarette burns, waterboarding, dog attacks, suspension from ceilings, and severe sexual and gender-based violence. The experts called it a picture of “absolute impunity.”
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society reported this week that severe overcrowding is forcing some detainees to sleep on the force, that physical assaults and punitive measures have increased in recent months, and that ongoing starvation and denial of medical care are accelerating disease spread inside the prisons. Female wardens conduct strip searches and beatings. Detainees face prolonged isolation alongside the denial of family visits and necessities. Women are being detained on suspicion of “incitement” and placed in administrative detention based on undisclosed secret files.
The UN Secretary-General’s 2026 report on conflict-related sexual violence confirmed 13 instances of sexual violence against Palestinians by Israeli forces in 2025, in addition to 18 cases in 2023 and 2024. The victims included women, men, boys, and girl from Gaza and the West Bank. Israel responded by declared the UN Secretary General persona non grata and cutting ties with him
This is a disability justice story
At CripJustice, we name what carceal systems do to bodies. Palestinian women in Israeli detention often face medical incarceration in which they are confined against their will, denied medical care, denied menstrual products, denied food, subjecteed to sexual violence and held in conditions that causes long-term physical and psychological disabilities.
Denying menstruation products is not a minor inconvenience. Its a deliberate degradation of bodily authonomy targetingn women specifically. The denial of medical care to women with cancer is the same logic with Mu’tasim Raddad, Walid Daqqah, and every other Palestinian political prisoner whose curable disease was allowed to progress to death while Israeli military courts denied early release on medical grounds.
The UN has reported sexual violence that cause dusability. Rape and sexual torture causes PTSD, depression, chronic pain, and lasting psychological injury. The women who are eventually released from these facilities will carry those injuries for the rest of their lives. The Israeli state will not be held accountable for producing it.
In November 2025, the UN Committee Against Torture reported that thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, including women and children, spent month in military custordy in appalling conditions, losing life, limbs, and health. As of Novemeber 2024, just 15 indictments had been filed against soldiers for crimes committed in connection with the war. The ratio of documented violations to accountability is not a gap, Its a policy.
The women we know by name
Three minors are currently detained, including one held under administrative detention without charge. Three pregnant women are being held. Two women have cancer and are being denied the medical treatment their conditions require. The old prisoners were detained before October 7, 2023 and have been inside for years. Behind these names are hundreds are more whose stories have gone undocumented because israeli authorities have restricted access to independent journalists, and becsause of the scale of the detention campaign since Octonber 7 has overwhelmed the capactity of human rights organization to track every case.
B’TSELEM
What accountability requires
The UN human rights experts stated plainly in August 2024: “Israel’s widespread and systemic abuse of Palestinians in detention and arbitrary arrest practices over decades, coupled with the absence of any restraints by the Israeli State since 7 October 2023, paint a shocking picture enabled by absolute impunity.”
Absolute impunity. That is the phrase. Not occasional violations bt rogue officers. Not systemic faulures requiring reform. Absolute impunity, facilitated by a state that has determined that Palestinian women’s bodies are not entitled to international law and an international community that has largelt warched, produced reports and moved on.
CripJustice names what systems do to bodies. Palestinian women’s bodies in Israeli detention are degraded, violated, starved, and denied treatment in documented, systematic, and continuous ways. The documentation exists. Accountability does not. That gap is not due to a failure of information. It’s a choice.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society has called for the urgent release of all female detainees, including children, pregnant women, and those suffering from illness.
Sources
89 Palestinian women held in Israeli prisons — Palestinian Information Center, June 2, 2026
Israel’s escalating use of torture: UN experts warn — UN/UNISPAL, August 5, 2024
Torture and mistreatment: OHCHR report on Palestinian detainees — UN/UNISPAL, July 31, 2024
